


Distance/Inbetween

by SleepyFarmGuy



Category: Distance/Inbetween, FinalRoad
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29108790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyFarmGuy/pseuds/SleepyFarmGuy
Summary: Autumn Rowland went missing back in 2014 at the age of 7. Fast forward to 2020, and an investigation is finally opened into her disappearance, led by her older sister and brother. Thing is, she doesn't want to go back to her family, and is on the run with a mysterious man and her edgy serial killer girlfriend. Will Autumn be deemed a lost cause, or will she succumb to her older brother?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 2





	1. The Tragedy of Culver Cliff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: depictions of a dead body, interaction with a dead body, abuse
> 
> Thank you for reading Distance/Inbetween!  
> \- Sleepy

The smell of iron filled the cold winter air, freshly fallen snow covering the thick red trail leading to the clifftop edge. I stood there aimlessly as my brother laughed at my hopelessness. "You're a mistake, Autumn." He said, eyes widened. "A stupid fucking mistake!" His words pierced through my heart like a freshly sharpened blade as he walked away cackling to himself. I sat myself on the cold sugar-like snow with the faint sounds of dripping accompanied by a cold gust of wind which fanned onto my face. I spotted my mother leaning over a bush near the cliff edge, arm hanging limply, grey overcoat hung over her slim shoulders. Her eyes were wide open, not blinking, mouth gaping, lips blue. I inadvertently rushed over to her to ask for a hug, but to my displeasure, there was no response. I realised I was getting cold, so I took off her grey overcoat and wrapped myself in it. I shut her eyes and mouth and laid her down on the floor. "Sorry I took your coat, Mum." I said. "It's weird that you are sleeping with your eyes open. I hope you sleep well." Fog surrounded the horizon, making ships I watched with my brother in the evening seem like figments of my imagination, like ghosts only existing in my mind. The sea splashed against the cliff base like those in white noise videos that Mum used to help her sleep. The fact she remained perfectly still was odd, and the fact that Dad was nowhere to be seen was odd. The sound of crunchy footsteps grew closer to me, and I reached for my mother's hand, only to find it had already been buried in the vast amount of snow that had been falling throughout the disarray. "What happened up here?" A young man's voice said in a cocktail of disbelief and shock. He turned from behind a tree to face me. "Ah, the child I was looking for. Autumn, correct?" He said in a friendly tone.  
"Mhm." I replied shyly. "Have I done anything wrong?"  
"No, not at all! You're the furthest from trouble right now. I'm Tobias." He said in a positive tone, beaming smile on his face.  
"Nice to meet you, Tobias." I replied, smile sneaking onto my face.  
"Now, Autumn. I run a place where people who have gone through tough situations can go to feel safe. Would you like to come?"  
I heard his offer and without thinking, I agreed. He stretched his hand out to me and I grasped it, and I held onto it like it was the end of the world. And with that, I began to smell vanilla, something I only smelled on a Saturday morning when Mum was doing the washing. I opened my eyes to see my sister towering over me, holding a few towels, some completely soaked. "Thank god you're awake." She sighed in relief. "Seems like as you were sleeping your element finally awakened." I remember this morning. June 8th, 2014. I had turned 7 not too long beforehand, only in February. I had woken up from a dream about me drowning, most likely reminiscent of what was actually happening. I sat up and went to the bathroom to change my clothes and get myself dry. But, as soon as I entered this dream, I was snapped out of it.  
I woke up to find myself on a ferry in the middle of the water. Next to me was Tobias holding my head on his knees. I sat up to look out of the window. Fog surrounded the boat like a blanket, snow dissipating over the water. "We're still two hours from London, feel free to stay asleep." It was oddly quiet, as if no one noticed we were there. No sounds of coffee machines or service announcements. Everyone sitting around us ignored us, as if we didn't exist. I took up Tobias's offer, and fell back asleep.


	2. Into The City!! 2020

I sped down the streets of London in my brand new aqua blue rollerblades, wind blowing through my yellowish-blonde fluffy hair, people shouting at me as I glided past pedestrians nonchalantly. People shouted at me as I narrowly avoided hitting them as I laughed, plastic bags drifting behind me. As I was about to turn to enter my apartment block, I noticed a well dressed woman staring at me. Her deep brown eyes were fixated on me, wide open in shock, brown hair tied in a neat bun on the top of her head. Her jaw dropped in disbelief and she stared at me dead in the eyes. I skated away, thinking nothing more of it. "I'm home, Sir." I said, as I entered through my apartment door. Odd. No one was home. I put away the shopping and sat down on the sofa before turning the TV on. I flicked through channels skipping past the boring comedies and talk shows, and decided to watch the news - there's always something new on there. Someone wearing a yellow hoodie was shown on screen being interviewed. His brown hair was messy and overgrown, flopping over his piercing yellow eyes. He stood there crying about something, staring directly into the camera, as if he were staring at me. It seemed oddly familiar, as if I'd seen him before. I couldn't help but stare, thoughts racing, tears building up in my eyes. Something was off. Really, really off. I read his name off the screen, and my mind went blank. "Liam Rowland". It was him. All I could see was a snowy plain, and the boy on screen stood in front of me. "You're a mistake!" He shouted. "A stupid fucking mistake!" All I could do was shake. I couldn't move. His words echoed throughout my mind. The sound of a door opening snapped me out of the trance, and Tobias stood in the hallway, shocked, unable to move. "Autumn? Everything okay?" he said, voice surprisingly steady. His eyes traced over the TV. He sighed. "I take it you've seen the news then." "Mhm." I admitted, shaking finally over. My hands were wet, puddles of water down at the sides of my legs. "Oh kid." He said sadly. "Come here." Before I had time to answer, I was pulled in for a hug. His embrace felt warm and welcoming. "I don't get why you still call me Sir. You can call me your dad, you know." "I know. It just seems odd, you know, not being my biological dad and all." I replied. "That's fair enough. I'm sorry." He sat next to me on the sofa. "Because of this new investigation, we'll all need to be very careful in public. I've already spoken to Tabitha and some others about it. We're all going to do our best to stay safe." He said, deadly serious. "Speaking of Tabitha, she told me to tell you she's going out for a couple days and that she should be back on Monday." "Ah, thank you, Tobias." I replied. A smile crept onto his face. He walked over to his room, and he told me he was going to have a nap. I went to my room and opened my dresser, taking out an old book. The leather cover had been cleaned to the best of it's ability, but in the corners it had been stained with blood. The photos inside however were fine, held together in clear film sheets. My eyes laid upon pages adorned with photos of my brothers and sister up on the cliff or on the beach, and then near the end there's only two photos with me in - one with my siblings, and one with me stood next to Liam, dated a day before what had happened. There were a few photos of my older sister as a child and teenager, and something seemed familiar. Her deep brown eyes. The long, flowing brown fair secured in a bun. It was a guaranteed fit for the woman she saw earlier. The woman from the street earlier was my older sister. How had I not recognised her? Was it the generic young adult features, or was it the fact I hadn't seen her for years? It didn't make sense, but at the same time it did. I set the album aside and and fell asleep. I woke up the next day to the news on the TV again. London was peaceful, just as expected on a Sunday morning. A solitary plane flew across the sky towards Heathrow, sun glistening off steel beams and panes of glass. The faint smell of coffee and the sound of silence comforted me, and I walked over to the kitchen. No sign of Tobias as per usual, only an old cup of coffee sat on the kitchen countertop along with a half eaten piece of toast. As normal, I was home alone. Tobias normally goes out in the mornings to do business, however I'm not sure what he does. I looked at a photo of Tobias and I on my 13th birthday. I compared Tobias to my actual father. I'd barely see my dad in a happy mood. He'd always be out or downright drunk. Tobias, however, is there for me. He saved me from that hellish scene when I was 7. I looked into Tobias's blue and red eyes and then into mine. I set it back onto the shelf it was on and I started to write a hypothetical letter in case my family came to find me. "To whom it may concern, You are finding this because I gave it to you. I do not wish to go back with you. I know what happened the day I vanished, and you do too. There is no reason for you to take me away from people who I love just for your own selfish gains. I will remain here until the day I decide not to, and even then - I will not go "home". Your sister, Autumn Rowland." I decided to get changed. I strolled over to my bedroom and put on a pair of grey shorts and a greyish-blue turtleneck top. I looked in my wardrobe for a cardigan to wear, but found a long dark overcoat instead. I put it and it surprisingly fit me. Little did I know, this would be the outfit that would strike fear into people's hearts.


	3. The Supernatural Safeguarding Agency

A young man dressed in a yellow hoodie walked down the hallways of a tall office building up to a short pink haired girl. He sat down on a seat a few desks in front of her, and pulled out a long sheet of paper with a brown long pole through it. "What are you doing with that weird ass paper now, Liam?" The girl said.  
"Writing." he replied.  
"You should be working. You don't get paid to sit around writing in that stupid thing."  
"Sachiko. Come the fuck on. You know I don't work today. I just live in the dormitories underground, and I stay wandering the halls like my bitch of a mother's ghost."  
"I feel like if Terracotta heard you say that you would be homeless wishing you died in place of your entire fucking family. How can you casually say that without expecting me, your sister's fiancé, to not react in a good way?!"  
"Oh stop being a sappy fuck already. I have no clue what my sister sees in you, you whore." Liam sneered, calmly.  
"Excuse me you prat? Get the fuck out of my office, Liam Rowland!" Sachiko screamed in anger.  
Sounds of high heels came clicking down the hall to reveal a tall brown-haired, brown-eyed woman dressed in a navy blue blazer, tight black skirt and white collared shirt with green tie. Her hair was tied in a bun on the back of her head, makeup done incredibly basic but flawlessly. "What's happened here then?" she sighed.  
"Liam came in, dumped his stuff in the corner, I told him he should be working, he said he didn't work here and said he wanders the halls like his dead mother, and when I retaliated he called me a sappy fuck and a whore." Sachiko said, almost in tears.  
"Liam, I told you to be nice to her. If you're not going to get along with her, then stay downstairs in the more social areas. You're not permitted up here anyhow, so if you come up here again I will have you escorted back down to your dorm." Terracotta sighed. "I cannot be bothered with you being childish as always. We have an ongoing investigation into our lost and missing sister, and you are picking fights with Sachiko?"  
"Terra, I told you already. It's been 6 long years. You have to face the fact that she's dead." Liam replied surprisingly composed.  
"I refuse to believe that, Liam. I could have sworn I saw her yesterday in the city centre. Same blonde hair, blue eyes, beaming smile- I'm convinced it was her."  
"So you opened an investigation based off of a stranger that happened to look like her? And you call me delusional!"  
"What? No, an investigation takes weeks, if not months to open, let alone a nationwide one."  
Liam let out a slight chuckle, and gathered his belongings, and walked down to his dorm room. He opened his doors to his ill-lit, windowless, shabby apartment. He hung his black bag on the half-broken metal coat-hook next to his spare white hoodie. He laid his roll of paper on his old wooden kitchen table and began writing various sentences on the paper's smooth but battered surface. "Later," he began. "I will see you, 01. And along with that, I vow to gain control over the remaining elements on this bitch of an earth." As he ended his sentence, Liam finished writing, walked over to his sofa-bed, and fell asleep.  
A few hours passed, and Liam awoke. "I really need to get this sofa replaced at some point." he yawned, playing with a spring that had popped out while he was sleeping. He picked up his yellow hoodie off the back of the sofa, and noticed it was unravelling on both of the sleeves. "Just as my day couldn't get any worse." He put on his white hoodie, put on his lanyard, and headed down to the bottom floor.  
Liam opened the double door to the entrance to the bottom floor. As they opened, white lights blinded him. White panels with lights reflecting off metal sheets on the walls defined long straight hallways. He walked into the common room to a young man, late teens sitting casually on a sofa, reading a book. "A tragedy in December 2014. That's what the book's about if you wanted to know, Sir." the boy said calmly, as if he was a robot.  
"What's the blurb say?" Liam replied in a slightly worried tone.  
"A hidden family housed upon a cliff mysteriously disappear one day in 2014. Was this a pact, or something far worse?" the boy replied, white and aqua blue curls bouncing up and down. "Title's 'The Tragedy of Culver Cliff'. Interesting read."  
"I'll give it a read some time. What's your name, kid?"  
The boy stood up, white bodysuit un-creasing, TSSA logo revealing itself on the left side of his chest. "Jasper." he replied uneasily. "But people call me 01. I have no clue why though."  
"So tell me, Jasper." Liam said confidently. "How did you end up in a place like this?"


	4. Rabbit and the Ruins Incident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw // murder, violence

I awoke to my apartment door opening with a surprisingly loud creak. "Hey Tobias." I said groggily. I sat up, brushed the hair out of my face whilst I flopped down face first onto the cold, wooden floor amidst my tired state. "That's a performance and a half, Autumn." a young girl's voice said. The sound of a metal bowl shaped item was heard being put onto the glass table next to my head. "I'm also not Tobias. It's 10am on a Monday morning. He's out working." Her hands helped flip me onto my back, revealing her face. "Tabitha! I'm so sorry, I've just woken up. I'm so stupid." I said frantically, trying to make it up to her. "It's fine, Autumn, there's no need to apologise. If anything, I should be apologising, I should have been quieter coming in. I'm sorry." She said, flipping the hair out of my face. She started staring at my clothes. "What's this outfit then? I've never seen that turtleneck before." She said softly, while toying with my overcoat's sleeve. "I thought you only kept this hanging up in the back of your wardrobe?"  
"I thought I'd see if it fit me now," I started. "I've had my sights set on a coat like this for ages now, and I forgot I had one."  
"I see. When did you get it, I don't remember any of the shops near here selling long sleeved grey overcoats like this, and if I had then I would have got one already, it's my shade of grey!"  
"Morally." I said jokingly.  
"Autumn, I'm a literal serial killer." Tabitha replied, tone serious. "I'm far from morally grey." She stood up, rabbit ears on her oversized grey hoodie hanging past her hips, grey oversized jogging bottoms fraying at the bottom, grey and white hair coming undone from her triangular-esque buns at the sides of her head.  
"It was a joke, no need to be so serious, Tabby!" I said playfully.  
"I know, I played along to wake you up a bit. We're going on our Monday morning walk."  
We walked up to the rooftop garden, and we jumped onto a neighbouring roof. Surprisingly, no one noticed the bridge of water I had made up in the sky connecting our roof to the other, so I presumed Tabitha had put up a barrier. "It's raining, that's why they cant see your bridge," Tabitha yelled from behind her metal rabbit mask, paint flaking off the corners. "I heard about that TSSA investigation. It's a load of bullshit, something fishy is going on here - You'll be okay." She reassured me, voice echo-y from her voice bouncing off the sides off her mask. I stared towards the ground, wind lifting the back of my overcoat up so it danced like a flag. "I'm just worried, Tabby." I mumbled. She looked up to me, so I didn't want to seem like some scared child. "What if they do find me? What if I'm taken away from you and Tobias? I don't want to go back to people who abandoned me, I want to stay with my adoptive father and my amazing girlfriend." "Hey, it's okay," she reassured me. "I won't let that happen, I promise. And if I ever break that, kill me." "I'll never kill you, Tabitha Woodstock." I smiled from behind the tears. "Come on, Autumn. Let's go to the ruins, clear our heads." Not too long afterward, we arrived at the ruins to see a well dressed woman standing in front of the entrance. I saw a flash of a pentacle with bright colours filled inbetween the lines. "TSSA agent." I said to Tabitha, and she took my cue. In the span of a second, she bounced off of the building's wall straight behind the agent. Out of her hand she produced a massive metal blade and stuck it in front of the woman's neck. "Get off the phone, now." Tabitha snarled, voice deeper than usual - so much so that it scared me. A familiar voice was at the other end of the line - and my mind took me back to that news conference summary I had watched about the investigation. Their voice belonged to the owner's right hand man, Sachiko Taylors - a half Japanese/half English woman with bright pink hair, green eyes and was rumoured to be in a relationship with the founder after being spotted at a crepe stand with them. I shook my head at Tabitha, my eyes pleading her to let her go, but I realised it was for the greater good. The agent stared directly at me, jaw hung open, eyes staring directly into mine with tears streaming down her face. I slid down a path I had made with water so I stood directly in front of her. "Autumn Rowland..?" she whispered, terrified out of her mind, Sachiko screaming for her to answer her on the other end of the line. "Yes." I replied, Tabitha nodding from behind her, and I understood what she meant. I took a step backwards, and said to the agent: "I'm sorry, but I can't have anyone know I'm alive." As soon as I had finished, Tabitha brought the blade towards the woman's neck, and with a bloodcurdling scream and quiet screaming from the now smashed phone, she was dead. I opened my eyes and saw a lifeless body on the floor, blood trickling out from her neck, seeping between the old cobblestone paved road. Her carrot-orange hair wafted gently in the air, the only sound left to be heard was the sound of cars in the distance. For such a tense situation, the calm atmosphere made it seem as if it had never happened. As Tabitha dumped her body in an old big Biffa bin nearby, I walked over to the phone. Sachiko was calling, so I picked up. "Where are you? What just happened? I'm sending a unit down to you now. I heard the words Autumn Rowland, did you see her?" Sachiko said frantically, as if she thought it was the agent who picked up. I contemplated telling her it was the actual Autumn, but then why did we kill someone? I decided to tell her, drive her crazy knowing that I had spoken to her. "I saw her," I said contently. "In fact, I am her. You are speaking to Autumn Rowland, how may I help you, Miss Sachiko Taylors?" "What?" She said stunned, voice filled with shock and terror. I hung up the phone, threw the phone to the curb and stamped on it until it caved in and bent in half. "Tabitha, we need to leave NOW." "On it." We simultaneously scaled the wall and waited until a unit came by. As soon as they arrived, we sprinted away. We arrived back at Tabitha's apartment. It was down the hall from mine, but instead it being a big two bedroom one, it was a small one-bed one, but incredibly tidy and clean. Her sofa-chair sat in the corner of the room in front of a rustic wooden coffee table. A flatscreen TV hung on the grey wall next to a small chalkboard with loads of white tallies on it. "36." Tabitha said, adding a new line onto it. "I'm fully prepared to add more to it."


End file.
